I discovered the Energy Advisor at the Tucson Electric Power site today. It’s a little cumbersome, but kinda cool. You can see it by going to www.tep.com and clicking on Energy Advisor over on the left hand side.
I’m guessing this is some kind of software that TEP has purchased and integrated into their website, because it asks questions about basements and attics and oil heating, none of which are common in Tucson. However, once you get past all the questions, there’s some neat features.
For example, you can answer specific questions about your heating or cooling systems and it will recommend ways to save on your energy bill. Some results for my 60 year old wire cut double red brick house with half original casement windows and half new dual pane windows, and pitched roof with rolled insulation:
- Sealing leaks in the air ducts may save me $32-54 annually, and cost $15-25.
- Replacing the windows may cost $3750-$6250, and would save me $6-10 per year.
Overall, there’s some decent cost saving ideas in there. It would be interesting to run a comparison to see what home improvement would save more money in the long run for a specific property: updating the A/C unit or installing new windows and insulation?
Some of the answers are a little funky, especially for a house like mine. I would expect that changing out the remaining old windows for new dual pane windows would help a lot more than $10 per year - but the way the questions were asked, the system thinks I have a brick house with a very small amount of insulation. Which is true, to a degree. There’s not much insulation in this house, really only in the ceiling, but with a double brick exterior, the walls are thick enough to provide some insulative (is that a word?) value. My last house had a tongue and groove ceiling and not a lick of roof insulation on a burnt adobe structure - and that poor A/C unit ran and ran all day trying to keep the place cool. This house has about the same thickness of walls, but has a pitched roof so we’ve got some rolled insulation up there - the house stays so much cooler, and the A/C runs a lot less.
Regardless of the quirks, it’s still cool to see TEP put actual numbers to the cost of improvements and estimated annualized savings. Check it out for yourself!
